The final item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S4M-12205, in the name of Bruce Crawford, on the clean up Scotland campaign. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament recognises the scale of the remaining problem of litter impacting on Scotland’s environment and welcomes the significant part played by the Keep Scotland Beautiful charity though its Clean Up Scotland campaign in tackling the problem over the last two years; welcomes the widespread national coalition that has been formed in support of the campaign, including the Scottish Government, the business community, local authorities, campaign groups and individuals from across Scotland, resulting in over 500,000 volunteer actions to clean up individual communities; welcomes the particular role that local authorities have played in adopting the Clean Up Scotland campaign and delivering integrated messages across the whole of Scotland including in Stirling; considers that litter has a significant impact as well as a negative impact on civic pride and notes evidence that poor environmental quality standards impact on health and social justice outcomes and costs Scotland £78 million per annum to clean up; welcomes the renewed focus for the Clean Up Scotland campaign on opportunities for individuals to do the right thing with their litter, recognising that significant further progress on litter levels requires behaviour change among those who dispose of their waste irresponsibly, and looks forward to further success in the battle against litter.
17:09
I sincerely thank all those colleagues who signed the motion, enabling me to hold this important members’ business debate. I also warmly thank those who are in the chamber this evening to take part in the debate or simply to listen to proceedings.
I wanted to lead the debate this evening because, like many others within and outwith the chamber, I care passionately about and have a deep pride in our country. I despair when I see our land tarnished by those who litter, spit their chewing gum on the street or allow dog fouling or fly tipping, whether that is through carelessness or illegal behaviour. As the briefing from Keep Scotland Beautiful, which was sent to all MSPs, tells us, the statistics on such matters are alarming. Every year in Scotland, 250 million easily visible items of litter are dropped. Every day, Scottish smokers throw away 2 million cigarette butts. There are 170 incidents of fly tipping every day, and 80 per cent of gum is not put in the bin and costs about £18 per square foot to remove. Goodness knows how many incidents of dog fouling there are.
It is because of such statistics and the evidence that we see with our own eyes that we should enthusiastically support Keep Scotland Beautiful’s clean up Scotland campaign. It is a fantastic mass engagement campaign that is working hard to make Scotland the cleanest country in Europe. Who could not sign up enthusiastically to such a vision? Across the chamber we agree that Scotland is one of the most beautiful countries in the world. We have a rich mix of incredible rural beauty, world-class cities and vibrant urban developments. It is vital that, in order to protect and enhance our country’s natural advantages, we support such campaigns.
The clean up Scotland campaign works across all 32 local authorities and has, at its heart, the aim of changing people’s attitudes and, therefore, their long-term behaviour towards litter. As we might expect, all of Scotland’s 32 local authorities have thrown their weight behind the campaign, as have organisations such as VisitScotland, Historic Scotland, BT, Scottish Water and Scottish and Southern Energy. The Scottish Government is also supporting the campaign. The campaign has substantial business support and is building up an impressive coalition of the willing, having motivated more than 80 local, national and global brands to invest in the campaign messages. McDonald’s has signed the clean up Scotland pledge, which is supported by all its stores and 13 franchisees that organise clean-ups. Other supporters include Business Improvement Districts Scotland, Greggs and Coca-Cola.
The clean up Scotland campaign is leading community clean-up activities across the country to tackle the carelessness and illegal behaviour of those individuals who damage our quality of life and tarnish the country’s image. The campaign has seen 500,000 voluntary clean-up actions pick up 5,000 tonnes of litter—those are two impressive statistics, for different reasons. Keep Scotland Beautiful rightly wants to change long-term behaviour by making dropping litter as socially unacceptable as drink driving is today.
Of course, the problem is not simply a visual one. There are social, health and financial consequences as well as environmental considerations. The current cost of dealing with the problem of litter in Scotland alone is over £1 million a week. Socially, there is a proven link between environmental incivilities and the fear of crime, as people feel safer in cleaner communities. Our health is also affected by litter, with higher levels of depression, illness and medical interventions recorded among people who live in areas that are not clean. There are severe financial consequences, too, for householders—directly in their pockets, because large chunks of their council tax have to be spent on addressing such issues—and landowners who have to spend significant sums of money on clearing mess from their land.
Members who know me well know that I care passionately about tourism. The industry is worth more than £4 billion a year. Our scenery and landscapes are some of the top reasons that people give for visiting Scotland. The first impressions of people who visit our country are hugely important. Visitors do not want to see streets full of litter, walls covered in unsightly graffiti or fly-tipping along the side of our country roads.
The clean up Scotland campaign is helping to make sure that our villages, towns and cities are kept as clean as possible, so that people can enjoy what Scotland has to offer without having to worry about an unclean environment around them.
One way in which the clean up Scotland campaign goes about that is through its hero of the month award, which recognises a volunteer’s outstanding contribution to cleaning up Scotland. In my Stirling constituency, Donald Holmes won the award in December 2014 for his outstanding individual efforts to collect and recycle litter around the village of Buchlyvie. Stirling Council nominated Donald, who has to date collected around 90 bags of rubbish and is starting to recycle the collected waste.
People such as Donald are inspirational. His work will, I hope, encourage others to work in the same quiet, efficient manner and make a difference to the local and therefore national environment. Heroes such as Donald, Keep Scotland Beautiful and all of those involved in the clean up Scotland campaign do a job that often goes unnoticed.
The most recent 2015 clean up Scotland initiative is the two-minute clean-up. For all the twitter users out there, the campaign hashtag is #2minutecleanup. The campaign aims to encourage those who may not have time to participate in a longer clean-up. Instead, people are provided with bespoke recycled bags, which they can cleanly and easily use to collect litter for two minutes a day.
When we see litter on the streets we will rightly complain about it. However, when we do not and see instead clean streets, we usually think nothing of it. Our clean streets are due to the hard work of organisations such as Scotland’s councils, Keep Scotland Beautiful and its clean up Scotland campaign. I applaud them for helping to keep Scotland tidy and beautiful.
17:17
I congratulate Bruce Crawford on securing the debate and Keep Scotland Beautiful on its clean up Scotland campaign.
Members of the public dropping litter is one of my bugbears, ahead, incidentally, of queue jumpers in the supermarket or motorists who can see that a lane ahead is blocked but expect to nudge in when they reach the bollards. That makes litter dropping pretty high on my list of bugbears.
Whether it is schoolchildren dropping a baked potato or a pizza box, the parent letting their child drop lollipop wrappers or, worse, doing it themselves in front of their children, or the motorists gaily rolling down the window and brazenly emptying the ash tray, I see red. Logoed carrier bags waving at me from the trees and stuck on fences, the debris and the detritus on our shores: I wish we could name and shame the culprits big time.
I went on a trip to Bruges some years ago and settled myself in the square to people watch as I quaffed a light lager to wash down some mussels. The square is quaint and apart from the horse-drawn tourist carriages—by the way, the horses have a special shoot attachment to catch their detritus—it is a people place. There was something very different about the scene, apart from the above, which I could not quite put my finger on. I realised that there was not a single piece, nay not even a speck of litter. Could any of us say the same for any square or main street in our constituencies? Some even think it a macho gesture to throw litter; no wonder we call them litter louts.
Visually, it is vandalism with a capital V. It also costs in money and manpower. Midlothian Council spends approximately £850,000 a year on litter removal and street sweeping. It alone has 250 instances of fly-tipping a year from the single item—the ubiquitous mattress or the saggy-bottomed sofa—to tipping on an industrial scale.
It costs in animal welfare. Discarded fishing tackle causes misery for swans, plastic bags choke livestock and fish in our seas have their very DNA altered by our disposal of chemical waste.
In addition to livestock being harmed, fly-tipping affects farmers across the Borders and Midlothian. It is estimated that around one third of farms are affected. I may be wrong about this, but I understand that it is the landowner who is responsible for the cost of removal.
I have many faults, as you know, Presiding Officer, but being guilty of littering is not one of them. We have laws, of course, but many people are unaware of them. Besides, who always has the confidence to confront the culprit? Until society views littering with the same abhorrence and distaste with which it views, say, spitting in public, I am afraid that we will never see the cleanliness of Bruges here.
To put it succinctly, if I were a guest on the television programme “Room 101”, I would advocate depositing litter—all litter—in room 101. There—I have got that off my chest. I welcome the continuing work of Keep Scotland Beautiful, and I hope, although not with a great deal of optimism, that I need not rant on the issue again.
I again congratulate Bruce Crawford on securing the debate.
17:20
I join Christine Grahame in congratulating Bruce Crawford on securing the debate. I also congratulate him on the content of his speech.
It is said that timing is everything in politics, so we should note the reception for Keep Scotland Beautiful that is taking place in the garden lobby at 6 o’clock and welcome the clean up Scotland champions from across the country to Parliament this evening. Their efforts should be applauded.
There is no doubt that we live in a beautiful country. I am proud to have Scotland’s first national park in my constituency—it is shared between my constituency and Bruce Crawford’s. Loch Lomond is iconic, and it draws visitors from home and abroad. We have the most amazing landscapes and dramatic coastlines, and just occasionally we have nice weather to go with it.
Of course, the blot on our landscape is litter. The statistics bear repeating—250 million visible items of litter are dropped every year. If we think about that as we drive along looking at the grass verges and the hedges, we begin to understand the scale of the problem that we face. I could not believe that there were 170 incidents of fly-tipping every day. I suspect that that is the tip of the iceberg and that those are only the incidents that we know about. It is not just the grass verges and the hedges that are affected by litter. The city streets are littered with detritus from food, cigarettes and so on.
I was struck by the example of Bruges that Christine Grahame gave. I grew up in Hong Kong, where litter campaigns were run. There are not so many grass verges there, but we had a purple dragon called Lap Sap Chung. As a child, I was most fearful of that purple dragon appearing, but the streets of Hong Kong are absolutely spotless. Maybe there is something that we can learn from what goes on there.
There are times when we could do with having that dragon in the chamber to handle Jackie Baillie.
I suggest that that is the role of the Presiding Officer—not that I am suggesting that he is a purple dragon.
Given that there seems to be a culture of just dropping litter, leaving it behind or throwing it out of the car window, the scale of the problem that we have is perhaps not astonishing. Therefore, the work of Keep Scotland Beautiful and the clean up Scotland campaign is vital. It is fantastic that they have encouraged an army of volunteers—including many of us—to undertake 300 clean-ups every month and to pick up thousands of tonnes of litter.
I know because I have participated in such activity that it is not just about doing something that is useful for the environment. It is great exercise, and it allows participants to switch off from the myriad things that they have going on in their heads. I have been at such events at Levengrove park, at the beach at Dumbarton—yes, we have one—and at Dumbarton castle on the banks of the Clyde. There have been litter picks in Helensburgh, and there is a litter pick in Luss on the banks of Loch Lomond on 7 March—I invite all who are present to participate; it will be fun.
I commend Keep Scotland Beautiful, not just for the mass engagement that it has encouraged but because it has brought together communities, local authorities, the public sector, the third sector and businesses. It has done a great job in bringing everyone together to take co-ordinated action. As Bruce Crawford told us, 80 local, national and global brands have supported the clean up Scotland campaign, including McDonald’s, Greggs, William Tracey, Wrigley’s and Coca-Cola Enterprises. They all recognise that we need to do more.
The issue is not just the visual impact of what is known as environmental incivility, but a lessening of civic pride, the negative impact on wildlife on land and in marine areas, and negative health and social justice outcomes.
I am conscious of the time, Presiding Officer, but I want to mention the impact on farms in my area. I have been approached by NFU Scotland, which has reported the huge impact of dog fouling in fields on the wellbeing of livestock, with cattle regularly miscarrying. I understand that a consultation is being undertaken, but I would be very pleased to hear from the cabinet secretary about what more can be done to prevent this sort of thing in future. The problem is increasing, and we need to help.
Education can play a hugely important role in encouraging the next generation not to litter. For example, I know from my local eco-schools that Keep Scotland Beautiful has had a huge impact. Education is about changing attitudes and behaviour, and our strategy needs to ensure that people take personal responsibility and are proactive about prevention and that enforcement action can be taken to ensure that those who litter are fined.
Finally, Presiding Officer—and you are not a purple dragon—I congratulate Keep Scotland Beautiful on its work and commend all the volunteers and partners across Scotland for their involvement.
17:26
One of the key themes to emerge from the work of the Parliament’s Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee on tackling climate change is the critical need for behavioural change. We will not respond to the challenges posed by global warming if we do not take drastic action to tackle our emissions, and we will be successful in tackling emissions only if, as a society and as individuals, we alter our behaviours. In many respects, the same points apply to the scandal of littering, which is a subject in which I know you take a strong personal interest, Presiding Officer.
One might almost say that the mission statement of the Scottish Government's litter strategy, “Towards a Litter Free Scotland: A Strategic Approach To Higher Quality Local Environments”, is the need to encourage
“individuals to take personal responsibility to make sure that waste does not pollute the environment in the first place.”
It is truly a national disgrace that a country as beautiful as Scotland is blighted by littering to such an extent. The fact that it costs an estimated £78 million annually to clean up litter gives us an idea of the scale of the issue. Of course, that cost, which is ultimately borne by us taxpayers, also hammers home the price of behaving in a socially unacceptable way.
However, it seems that, in the same way as the public are beginning to embrace recycling, they are getting on board with tackling the littering issue. I therefore congratulate my colleague Bruce Crawford on lodging this motion for debate and highlighting the vehicle for positive behavioural change that KSB’s clean up Scotland campaign is. The campaign has attracted a coalition of support from the business community and local authorities—and, indeed, I will return to the local authority issue in a second.
More than anything, it is the buy-in from individuals and local groups that will ultimately determine the success or otherwise of the campaign. After all, if we realise the ambition to get 1 million people to take action, with the demonstrable impact that that will have on our environment, we will find ourselves in a far better place.
We must also recognise the leadership role that our councils must have and which they are fulfilling. For example, in the local authority area that I represent, a clean up Angus campaign is being supported by the council’s pride in place group. Funding from Zero Waste Scotland is also being deployed on two innovative litter projects.
First of all, the prevent litter and pick up three campaign, which was launched earlier this month at the West Links area in Arbroath, aims to reduce the incidence of littering between Arbroath and East Haven by encouraging all users—local residents, visitors and so on—to stop littering and to pick up any three items of litter that they see and place them in nearby litter or recycling bins.
Secondly, there is Forfar academy’s litter prevention scheme, which school pupils, school staff and local businesses have been heavily involved in developing. The scheme, which includes the adoption of a school litter charter, followed a survey of the school’s pupils that found that 84 per cent felt the area around the campus to be moderately to heavily littered and that one in three had themselves littered in the preceding month.
We are also seeing the branding of new litter bins with the clean up Angus logo. The campaign is being promoted via presentations at primary and high schools; free equipment and collection of waste are being offered to groups that carry out community litter clean-ups; and a litter awareness short film linked to the campaign is currently in production.
Beyond the work that has been instigated by the council, we are seeing individuals and communities stepping up to the mark, and I would like to highlight some examples.
Scott Smith, who is a cerebral palsy sufferer from Carnoustie, was named clean up Scotland’s first ever ditch the dirt hero in September 2013. Scott was involved in taking the lead in work with primary school pupils of Burnside primary school and the Carnoustie canine capers group in addressing dog dirt in the town’s Pitskelly park. It is worth noting in passing that 64 per cent of the litter picks that were registered with clean up Scotland recorded instances of dog fouling.
Kris Auchinleck of the Monifieth eco force was named hero of the month that same month for work to improve the appearance and experience of that town. In Forfar, Whitehills primary school pupil Sophie-Ann Robson was awarded the clean up hero award in 2013 for her campaigning work on dog fouling.
All three are due to attend Bruce Crawford’s event in the Parliament, which follows this debate. All three have demonstrated the campaign’s mantra. They have demonstrated civic responsibility and have taken pride in where they live, work and spend their leisure time. All of us surely must follow that lead.
17:30
I, too, congratulate Bruce Crawford on securing this important debate, and I recognise the good work of Keep Scotland Beautiful and its clean up Scotland campaign.
Litter in our environment can seriously impact on our quality of life, and the presence of litter sends out an incredibly bad message to visitors and tourists, many of whom are attracted to our shores by what they expect to be our pristine natural environment and well-kept villages, towns and cities. The costs of remedying litter fall on hard-pressed taxpayers.
The motion is right to highlight the commendable efforts of those who volunteer to help to clean up their communities, including many thousands of residents in my Highlands and Islands region. I pay tribute to all those constituents who give up their time to undertake those activities, from Kintyre to Shetland.
I highlight the example of Sandra McMillan from Beachwatch Bute. She does sterling work on Bute to bring together local people and visitors to the island to remove litter from Bute’s coastline and beaches. She is a clean up Scotland hero, and I am delighted that she has won a number of small litter grants to assist her efforts.
Tackling litter on our beaches and coastlines is a massive challenge. The Scottish Association for Marine Science did a survey in 2010 and collected more than 53,000 pieces of litter from a sample of 22km of Scottish beaches. That is more than one item for every step trod. Litter can also do a lot of harm to our wild birds and animals and it can, of course, be lethal to farmers’ livestock.
The motion refers to the role of the business community. I am pleased that Coca-Cola Enterprises is one of a number of businesses that readily accept the part that they can play in the clean-up of their products’ packaging. It is encouraging that Coca-Cola Enterprises is helping to fund and support KSB and allowing it to back up local groups that wish to tackle the scourge of litter in their communities. Things do go better with Coke.
We need to see the behaviour change to which Bruce Crawford referred. Education is the key in that respect. I support the efforts to engage with primary and secondary school children on the impact of litter on their communities.
Education can help to alter adult behaviour, as well. ASH Scotland’s briefing for today’s debate says that almost 50 per cent of our streets have some form of tobacco-related litter, including cigarette butts, matches and packaging, and that that rises to 70 per cent in urban areas. Many smokers think that butts will biodegrade, but they do not. Discarded butts can also end up leaking harmful toxins into our water systems that can harm marine life and the environment. We need to get the message out that tobacco-related littering is unacceptable, as indeed all types of littering are. In my region, Highland Council is to be congratulated on its stub it, bin it campaign, which it launched last year.
I sometimes wish that some local councils would be more generous in aiding litter collection by volunteers. I have been chairman of the Loch Awe Improvement Association in Argyll since 1992. During that time, we have organised many clean-ups by volunteers, and our wardens pick up bags of rubbish off the loch shore every week. However, the association has to pay £380 each for the large bins, of which we have several, and we have to pay hundreds of pounds for black bags. We are then charged £2,300 for uplifting them. The association is doing a good job, and it feels that it is performing a valuable voluntary service by running a litter collection service locally. We feel that we should be helped by the council rather than charged for what we do. I would like to know the minister’s opinion about that.
The Scottish Conservatives are happy to give our backing to Bruce Crawford’s motion, which rightly has cross-party support. We recognise the continuing efforts of Keep Scotland Beautiful and all the volunteers throughout the country and the excellent work being undertaken. However, we acknowledge that the challenge that we face is to change the behaviour of some people and move towards the situation where littering is socially and culturally unacceptable.
17:35
I, too, welcome Bruce Crawford’s initiative in bringing the debate to the chamber today. I share his passions for tourism and having a litter-free country. I welcome the efforts and campaigns of Keep Scotland Beautiful and volunteers across Scotland to clean up individual communities.
When I entered Parliament in 2011, I was minded to bring in a member’s bill on litter, but I withdrew that intent because the Government committed to bring in extensive proposals to deal with the issue. As the motion points out, some steps have been taken, particularly via the clean up Scotland campaign, which is effective and good news. However, Mr Crawford’s motion rightly points out the scale of the remaining problem and the fact that significant further progress requires to be made on litter levels. I accept that that requires significant behavioural change, but I believe that further legislation is also required to support our objectives. I welcomed the significantly increased penalties in the Litter (Fixed Penalties) (Scotland) (Order) 2013 for littering, fly-tipping and so on. That seems to have had some effect, but we need more than that.
As has been said, litter is a blight on our beautiful country of Scotland. However, litter is one of the few factors—it is a major factor in some cases—that impact not just on the beauty of Scotland but on its economy. We do not want litter to be a bad experience for our tourists or, indeed, our citizens. The £60 million of public money that is spent on tackling litter and fly-tipping each year could be spent on other services. One tonne of litter represents 20,000 items, which spread nose to tail would extend for 12.5 miles. Nowhere is the extent of the litter problem more obvious than in our town centres. I wish that Ayr,
“wham ne’er a town surpasses,”
was known more
“For honest men and bonny lasses”
than it sometimes is for the litter on its streets.
I will dwell on two suggestions to add to the debate on litter, particularly in our town centres. The dropping or spitting out of chewing gum is an offence under section 87 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, but the pavements and streets of our town centres still suffer from a chewing gum pox. That has to be eliminated, so I repeat my previous suggestion that, in the obvious absence of the application of penalties, the local sale of non-biodegradable chewing gum should attract a levy of, say, 10p a pack, which could be contributed to local authorities to allow them to clean up the chewing gum mess.
The second suggestion is to encourage the creation of a social enterprise in each locality—I have had discussions on this proposal locally—that would use rickshaws with bins aboard to ensure that litter louts got the message and had the opportunity to deposit their litter appropriately. Each rickshaw rider would have a webcam-bearing helmet to record and immediately fine those who continued to drop their litter in the streets.
Are you serious?
I am very serious.
The funding for that could come from the £60 million that we currently spend on tackling litter. Singapore we may never be, but I believe that we can make even greater strides.
Again, I congratulate Keep Scotland Beautiful. We have certainly done well and have made progress, but a lot more needs to be done.
17:39
I congratulate Bruce Crawford and thank him for raising this important issue in Parliament, and I thank all members who have spoken in the debate.
We heard that many members have been angered by the scale of littering in Scotland: woe betide any litter lout who comes across Christine Grahame, in particular. She is understandably angered by what we sometimes see in our communities and across Scotland’s beautiful landscapes.
I look forward to welcoming many people from across Scotland who are involved in the issue at the reception that will be hosted after the debate.
We all agree that litter is a disgusting blight on our communities and our coasts. It tarnishes our beautiful landscapes and, as members have said, it harms public health and our wildlife. Extreme examples of littering can drag down the morale of Scotland’s communities, as well. We all agree that the problem must be addressed.
Many members will identify with what I am going to say, and I will do my best to reflect on some of the points that members made in the debate. First and foremost is the fact that many different people are responsible for dealing with the issue. Our local authorities must, of course, be at the forefront of the fight against litter. Many local authorities in Scotland are doing a grand job; others could perhaps do more, as some members mentioned. I hope that they will do that.
There are other issues—this is not just about bottles, cans and fag packets. Members including Jackie Baillie mentioned dog fouling, which is a blight on some of our communities. Again, local authorities have powers to deal with that, so I urge those that are not using the existing legislation to explore whether they can do more to address the problem using the fines that are available.
The cabinet secretary and I have exchanged correspondence. My understanding is that the legislation does not cover farm land because it is private land. There is concern about the scope that local authorities have to enforce. I wonder whether we can do something clever to try to help farmers with the problem.
I was referring to dog fouling in general, but I take the point that we should perhaps explore whether there is more that we can do in relation to farm land. I will have a look at that.
I hope that local authorities will use the existing fines that are available. A responsible dog ownership consultation took place recently and we are currently considering the responses. Dog fouling was part of that, and one of the clear messages that came across was that more needs to be done at local level with existing legislation.
Should organisations or councils wish to give out plastic bags to dog owners for them to pick up excrement, will the 5p tax be charged on those plastic bags?
I make the obvious point that responsible dog ownership means that people get their own bags and look after their own dogs’ fouling on our streets and in our communities. I find it appalling that nowadays, when we go out into the countryside, we find little doggy bags on fence posts. They should be taken home and disposed of appropriately by dog owners. I hope that that message gets across in the future.
Another point that we agree on is that the total cost of littering is unacceptable to society. As members said, it is £78 million a year. At least £53 million of that is the direct clear-up costs and the other £25 million relates to its effect on a range of other issues such as crime, health and reduced property values. Over and above that, there is a further cost to the marine environment of £16.8 million each and every year, and that in turn impacts on our environment, wildlife, industry and tourism.
As Jamie McGrigor said, marine litter is not just about the impact on marine wildlife. It is also a significant issue for the fishing industry. Vessels participating in the fishing for litter initiative landed more than 374 tonnes of litter between 2011 and 2014, and it is estimated that the problem costs every vessel in the Scottish fleet as much as £17,000 a year. That is a considerable sum. All that cash could be better spent on other things.
We should also consider that the discarded plastic bottles, aluminium cans and other materials that we see would have been worth an estimated £1.2 million if they were recycled. If we reuse the resources that are dumped on our pavements, in our communities or at sea, we could get millions of pounds back, given the value of the materials.
In addressing the litter problem, the national litter strategy and the marine litter counterpart strategy, which were launched last summer, also seek to boost our economy. The priority, of course, remains prevention: there is a focused strategy for which all of us should take responsibility over the next four years, supported by our delivery partner, Zero Waste Scotland, which has already made £500,000 available to Keep Scotland Beautiful’s clean up Scotland campaign. Keep Scotland Beautiful has many challenges to deal with, not the least of which is cleaning up the mess that is left by litter louts. Quite rightly, it relies on local action being taken by individuals, groups, business and councils.
I am particularly pleased that clean up Scotland is celebrating local champions such as young Bronagh Dallas from Elgin in my constituency, who picks up litter every day on her way to and from school. The Northern Scot reported that
“the first thing she does when she gets home, before she does her homework, is go on a litter pick of the streets around her home”.
The article goes on to say that she
“even drags her mum and other family members out on litter picks after school and at weekends.”
Bronagh is an inspiration to her generation and to the rest of us, and is a worthy local champion, as are the many people who have been mentioned by other members.
I should also mention Pete Miners from my constituency. He patrols the River Lossie, and has done for many years, picking up marine litter. He posts on Facebook the pictures of what he finds; it is absolutely phenomenal to see the piles of marine and other litter that he collects on his daily walks along the banks of the Lossie.
With about half a million volunteer clean-ups taking place across Scotland, tens of thousands of tonnes of litter have been removed, so we owe a huge debt to the many hundreds of thousands of volunteers across the country. That is a great achievement, but we still have a situation in which one in five adults admits to littering, so the problem persists.
We must remember that Keep Scotland Beautiful and our local authorities are not the only organisations with interests and responsibilities in the area. It is something that we all have to be part of—organisations, individuals and the private sector. I recently visited a McDonald’s restaurant in Elgin which undertakes activities around the restaurant and in neighbouring streets to collect litter. It is really important that the private sector continues to play its part as well.
In summary, the strategy that the Government has launched has three routes for dealing with the problem of litter. First, there is communication—highlighting what to do and explaining that litter is unacceptable. Secondly, we must ensure that the appropriate infrastructure is available for people to deposit their litter. Thirdly, there is enforcement as a deterrent to make people stop and think. We have already introduced higher fixed penalties—£80 for littering and £200 for fly tipping—to strengthen the deterrent, and we now have the carrier bag charge, which we hope will keep bags from being discarded in our streets, because people will be using bags for life and there will be fewer bags circulating. We also had a national marketing campaign in 2014, and there are on-going communications to keep the issue in the public eye. Finally, we are rolling out recycle-on-the-go points across some of Scotland’s busiest places.
I welcome this debate on a really important issue for Scotland. I hope that we can continue to work and collaborate across society to make littering socially unacceptable. As many members have said, it is socially unacceptable and it is a vandalism of Scotland’s environment and communities, so we have to deal with it. Let us keep working together, as Bruce Crawford says, to keep Scotland beautiful.
Meeting closed at 17:48.Previous
Decision Time